CityPass CEO Yair Naveh said Monday that he supports segregated men only and women only cars on the Jerusalem light rail train, which reporters and officials were invited to ride in a celebratory ceremony on Monday.

"The train was built to serve everyone," Naveh said, in response to a question on segregated cars. "I think it is required to create alternatives for everyone, and that option exists because of the train's division into cars. It is not a problem to declare every third or fourth car a mehadrin (kosher) car."

The question is whether haredi prurience, disguised as meticulous adherence to the dictates of Judaism, should be allowed to dominate Jerusalem’s public spaces even when this prurience has the backing of market forces.

...In recent years, the haredi community has adopted increasingly zealous and extremist positions, especially with regard to questions of female modesty – tzniut.

...The cure, according to [Rabbi Moshe] Feinstein, was not to force women out of sight, but to go out and get an honest, productive job. How right he was.

The children of the “Hassidic stream” who were enrolled last year in the mixed Ashkenazi- Sephardi Beit Ya’acov girls school in the haredi town of Emmanuel will be allowed to study in a separate school meant to preserve the religious strictures and customs observed by their parents, disciples of the Slonim rebbe, the Education Ministry informed the High Court of Justice on Wednesday.

However, unlike other schools that are exempt from the Compulsory Education Law and are not recognized by the ministry, the new school will not receive any state funding for the coming school year. Most exempted schools receive 55 percent funding.

The Education Ministry told the court yesterday it would allow the Ashkenazi parents to open a new school that would receive no state funding, unlike similar schools run by ultra-Orthodox networks that receive 55 percent of their budget from the state....The Ministry also said that while the new school would not receive state funding during its first year of operation, the ministry would consider future funding requests.

Nothing less than the threat of closure can justify a Talmud Torah teaching core curriculum subjects, a member of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages said.

According to Rabbi Shimon Ba’adani, head of the Torah VeChaim Kollel in Bnei Brak and one of three senior Sephardi sages, headed by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, comprising the highest authority in Shas, even elementary- level schools should refrain from secular studies, unless the fines they’d be subject to from the Education Ministry would cause the school to close.

"We challenge them the moment we open our mouth to sing with our full voices," said Nofrat Frankel, who sings in a quiet but steady voice. The group sings with melodic timbre, and the women's voices carry across the stone plaza as they pray. They clap their hands, and close their eyes to the agitators who often gather around them.

"I refuse to give in, and I will continue to fight for my right to practice Judaism according to my beliefs," Frankel said. "Here in Israel, the Western Wall has become a place that is so religious, so extreme, that the average person doesn't feel like it could belong to them too."

In an attempt to counter those who accuse them of being extremists, Women of the Wall — composed of women who gather once a month for a prayer service at the Western Wall — recently asked women around the world to send in photographs of themselves reading from or holding a Torah.

One of the solutions suggested by the Western Wall administration was to place one-way mirrors that will enable women to look into the men's section, similar to the partitions currently in place at the Western Wall tunnels.

After inspecting the area, the administration realized the one-way mirrors lose their effectiveness when they are exposed to the sun, and become visible from both sides.

The silenced shofar is a symbol of the silenced voices of women at the Kotel. Though our picture is painted as one of women who keep provoking the ultra-Orthodox, we at Women of the Wall have practiced the same traditions month after month and year after year.

It is the police who change their ordinances and standards each month as they defend ultra-Orthodox control over the Kotel.

Perhaps the uproar over the conversion bill is the opportunity we have been waiting for to have truly decentralized religious authority in Israel, as we already do in the rest of the world, outside the boundaries of the government and the Chief Rabbinate.

Gary Rosenblatt surely is to be commended for his courage and insight in publicly recognizing that the so-called Rotem Knesset bill on conversions should be recognized and appreciated by all American Jews, Orthodox or otherwise, for what it is, rather than be attacked for what it is not.

The Masorti Movement, along with other non-Orthodox movements, has continued to make a major positive impact, not only on world Jewry, but on Israel too. This can be seen by the myriad of leaders, both rabbinic and political, who have sought us out for consultation. But it may also be seen by the many public figures who have spoken so derisively, so frequently, in so many public venues.

...Israel's official rabbinate has lost its way. It has become irrelevant. The haredi community has its own leaders and the non-haredi has little use for the Rabbinate. May this new year see a continued push for the privatizing of the rabbinate and a free market of Jewish ideas.

When Daniel and Ian Chesir-Teran - a gay married couple that adopted three black children - came to Israel last year as part of Ian's rabbinic training, they were certain they could never make a life in the Holy Land.

"We said there's no chance that we're going to live in Israel, because Israeli society is so polarized - religious versus secular - so how could a mixed-race, gay, religious, Masorti and egalitarian family like ours find a place, a niche, a community? Where we would be able to send our kids to school, feel comfortable?"

After years of loneliness and failed dates, as yearning for child becomes intolerable, an increasing number of national-religious women decide to take their fate in their hands, start a family as single mothers while maintaining a religious way of life. The new phenomenon is already dividing the sector, irking rabbis.

Rabbi Cherlow doesn't believe in discussions in utmost discretion, and meets with students at the seminary for girls at Bar-Ilan University.

"If this is Halacha, why hide it? A halachic debate must be public. The burden of proof lies on those seeking to hide. Beyond that, lack of publicity gives the Rabbinate a great amount of power. This is not a desired situation.

The right situation is an open debate, while dealing with the questions being raised. In addition, the absence of a clear statement sometimes generates urban legends, which have nothing to do with reality."

Never mind that you think it's still hot. In two weeks, winter will arrive. In that, Israel is unique. Only here can a minority community of observant Jews bend the will of the majority and turn the height of summer into winter, at least officially. The sun refuses to obey.

...For years the Israeli majority has striven to achieve a normal daylight-saving regime here, too. But the political clout of the religious and Haredi parties has tipped the scale.

Robert Rockaway is professor emeritus of American Jewish history at Tel Aviv University.

Only when Judaism in Israel is divorced from politics will it become more attractive to the populace and constitute a unifying, rather than divisive, force.

Unless this occurs, the monopoly exercised by a small, extreme group of rabbis over the population will continue to alienate Israelis from Judaism, and may lead them to eventually do what their European brethren did more than 100 years ago: vote with their feet.

In Jewish-Evangelical Christian relations, a hot button issue is the Messianic movement.

It is easy to say the Messianic community is a monolith and all wish to bring the Gospel to every Jew. The truth is that many just want to practice their faith in private and have no active agenda in missionizing other Jews.

However, there is a minority who use deceptive proselytizing practices to win Jewish converts.

Prime MinisterBinyamin Netanyahuon Sunday distanced himself from inflammatory comments made by Shas spiritual leaderRabbi Ovadia Yosefover the weekend in which he wished a plague on Palestinian Authority PresidentMahmoud Abbasand the Palestinian people.

During his weekly lesson, held at the synagogue near his house in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har-Nof, Rabbi Yosef mentioned the blessing said at the Rosh Hashana feast that says, "May our enemies and adversaries be destroyed", and applied it to the current situation.

"Abu Mazen (Abbas) and all those evil men – may they perish from this world. May God Almighty strike them and these Palestinians."

In a letter sent to the Chief Rabbinate, retired judges and senior jurists have asked for clarification on whether or not they are allowed to join a minyan.

The letter comes in the wake of controversial statements made by a member of the council of the Chief Rabbinate, Holon municipal Rabbi Avraham Yosef, who said on his radio show that judges should not be allowed to join minyans or anything holy, as they challenge Mosaic Law.

According to Rabbi Avraham Yosef, chief rabbi of Holon and a member of the Chief Rabbinate’s Council, judges and people with senior positions in secular authorities should be disqualified from that privilege, and not even be counted in forming a 10-man group for prayer.

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, head of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, Israel’s Reform movement, slammed Yosef in a statement on Monday.

“This is an additional test for Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman, who can have Yosef face disciplinary charges."

Although Shas’s initial raison d’être was to protect the rights of the Sephardi haredim, long under the control of the then-Ashkenazi majority, it maintained a deafening silence during the entire Emmanuel affair, and, in the end, lined up with the Ashkenazi boycotters.

...Shas has therefore come full circle. There is a degree of closure in the positions adopted by Ovadia Yosef and Eli Yishai throughout the Emmanuel episode, and a definitive return by Shas to the original path on which it set out back in the early 1980s.

Their structural poverty is caused or enabled by long-standing government policy: By subsidizing Haredi men who study instead of work, and exempting them from military service, successive Israeli governments have created huge incentives toward non-employment that are only now beginning to be dismantled.

A recent study found that only 18% of Haredi men in London sit in yeshiva all day, compared to about 67% in Israel. Why? British welfare policy encourages work. Traditional Jewish education there includes nonreligious studies. And there is no mandatory military service to flee, so entering the work force is more palatable.

“We are not calling for no Torah study. It is of tremendous importance, and should be supported, but in the proper context. It should be based on intellectual capacity and reasonable quotas. The public cannot be asked to pay for an open-ended commitment to support any and all yeshiva students with no limitations. There is no precedent in Jewish history for that."

Hence, the next step is to create work environments that would constitute a softer, welcoming element to the ultra-Orthodox community – for example, a kosher kitchen, (certain) separation between men and women, maintaining a certain dress code at work, and shuttles from haredi strongholds to work (or the establishment of service centers of various companies close to haredi areas.)

It would also be worthwhile to designate certain quotas for haredim at Israeli companies, as a sort of “affirmative action.”

Israel is set to become the first country in the world to impose a blanket ban on the import of animal fur -- a move animal rights activists hope will have a domino effect around the world.

There was some opposition from religious groups representing ultra-orthodox Jews, whose traditional festive headgear, known as a shtreimel, is made partly from fox fur. Tirosh introduced a clause in her proposed legislation allowing for the import of fox fur for religious purposes.

Rabbi Metzger chose not to inform the Israel Defense Forces or the Shin Bet's VIP security unit, and an investigation was not launched into the incident.

Last week, Metzger escaped from another event after being chased by dozens of Neutrei Karta members at a bookstore in the ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Mea Shearim, where books are sold in English by a woman.

Pre-military preparatory courses have been part and parcel with the IDF experience for some time now, so much so that various options have sprung up over the years. A young person facing enlistment can choose from a religious, secular, or Druze preparatory course. There is even a prep course for religious girls. This year, another pre-military preparatory course joins the 36 that already exist – a haredi preparatory course.

In the haredi world, where enlistment into the military is almost completely shunned, such a course is a real breakthrough.

"This is another aspect of the change the haredi public is undergoing," explained David Zoldan, one of the first soldiers in Nahal Haredi.

A political battle over a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem that began with charges of insensitivity leveled at plans for a museum of religious tolerance at the site has spread into a more curious fight about whether hundreds of nearby tombstones are even real.

As Rosh Hashanah, the New Year holiday, nears, preparations for the traditional annual pilgrimage to the gravesite of Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav begin.

“This year is a special year and there will likely be more people flying out,” said [trip organizer] Gabbai. “The Israeli Airports Authority has issued 18,000 flight permits. Every year in the past, twelve flights went out to Uman. This year there will be nineteen.”

Like most of the 20-odd seminaries catering to English speakers in Israel, Shirat Devorah - which opened its doors last week and currently has 11 students - teaches its young women Bible, Jewish philosophy, history and halakha. However, Mason says she tailors her program to today's Modern Orthodox women's spirituality.

"We want to create a very feminine space, by women, for women, thinking about how women experience life, how women learn best."

"There has been a downfall since World War II. ... I call this boogie-woogie and they call it pop. It expresses people's animalistic and lower urges. This noisy, fast rhythm is unlike that of the Hasidim, who sang with devotion and could do so for hours. Its very basis is improper: urges without any elevating principle. It must absolutely be avoided. ... That kind of thing is in the jungle."

A women only semi-annual designer fair in Jerusalem, held ahead of the Jewish holidays, brought together a mostly religious crowd seeking designer clothes and accessories within the Jewish Orthodox limits of modestly.

Once a tiny niche market aimed almost exclusively at fervently Orthodox Jews, the modest clothing industry has blossomed in Israel — and abroad — in recent years, after designers and retailers began to realize the buying power of modesty-oriented Jews, Christians and Muslims.

A cleaner who worked in a synagogue was indicted by the Jerusalem District Court on Friday on charges of sexual abusing at the place of worship minors between the ages of eight and thirteen. The suspect has also been charged with sodomy and attempted sodomy.

A police representative at the suspect's remand hearing alleged that the congregation's rabbis were aware of the man's conduct but had failed to inform police.

Police are investigating suspicions that a woman equipped with recording equipment was paid to attempt to lure Rabbi Yaakov Ifergan of Netivot, also known as the "x-ray," into carrying out immodest acts, as part of an attempt to damage his reputation.

The southern town of Netivot has never seen anything like it - a religious figure known as the "X-ray rabbi" and a femme fatale honey trap caught in a web of intrigue involving lust, blackmail and a lot of money.

Police suspect the city comptroller, at the behest of a rival kabbalist rabbi, of helping arrange for the young woman to seduce the popular Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Ifergan and film the encounter.

Every first-year law student knows that hard cases make bad law. In Israel, a particularly hard case lies in the ongoing controversy around an inflammatory Hebrew-language volume of Jewish religious law (halakhah) that offers justifications for violent treatment of non-Jews in general and of Israel's foes in particular.

The debate has highlighted longstanding divisions within Israeli society; now that the courts and the police have gotten into the act, it has also highlighted the difficulties of drawing meaningful lines between free speech and incitement.

It’s time to address the widespread practice among Israeli followers of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov of leaving Eretz Yisrael to spend Rosh Hashana at his gravesite in Uman each year – and I really will try to be balanced.

Jewish, Muslim and Christian clergy gathered on Wednesday evening in Jerusalem to discuss the commonalities between the three faiths and hold a joint iftar meal, at the break of that day’s Ramadan fast.

Those participating in the event at Mishkenot Sha’ananim strove to bring believers together under a banner of religious tolerance, coexistence and cooperation.

Nearly 600 people of a plethora of religions convened in Acre on Monday evening for a festive Iftar meal, marking the end of that day’s Ramadan fast and paying tribute to the country’s Muslim citizens.

Hundreds of past and present Jewish residents of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem came together yesterday for a multi-generational meeting, to celebrate 40 years since the renewal of Jewish settlement in the Jewish Quarter. Arutz Sheva spoke with several participants, who told about how life there has changed over the years.

Following Ynet's report on an agreement that the Palestinian Agreement would restore Joseph's Tomb, a group of rabbis from Samaria is demanding that the renovation work be carried out by Israeli Jews only.

Neve Shalom, southwest of Neve Tzedek, is one of Tel Aviv's hottest real estate spots, and Reami is determined to keep the synagogue from being demolished. The dispute between has at times turned violent, and involved police complaints and counter-complaints.

A growing movement among Jews strives to assert sovereignty over the Temple Mount.

“The Temple Mount has always been at the center of national awareness,” says Dr. Shmuel Berkovitz. “The call of the rabbis from the Zionist religious movement has enhanced the longing that has always existed for site.

Currently,” he concludes, “there is a vacuum of sovereignty on the Mount. And we all know that a vacuum like this cannot be sustained.”

[T]he time has come to review the issues and bring them up to date. The goals of this article are to do exactly that: to lay out the primary sources on the subject, to state the main opinions of the Rishonim, to chronicle the historical development of the Temple Mount, to clarify the archaeological issues and debates, and to present the various opinions of modern rabbinic authorities.